Gluten-free Banana Breakfast Dumplings with Vanilla Bean Maple Butter

Let’s do a thing. Let’s call it breakfast. Let’s call it dumplings. Let’s call it another awesome giveaway!!

A breakfast dumpling is the what you might call a thick, fluffy, too-thick-and-fluffy-for-its-own-good pancake. It’s a sweet and tender combination that involves sugar, carbs, and ripe bananas. It’s a bit of breakfast genius. It’s too good to remain on a plate. It’s nap inducing.

To make matters that much more awesome, these breakfast dumplings are paired with a giveaway! Get right on into it!

This summer I partnered with Lost Crates. Lost Crates is a gift subscription program that ships off awesome curated gift crates every month. It’s my way of sharing some of the products and companies that I love with you… every month… in your mailbox.

Giveaway Alert: 3 lucky readers will win a four-month subscription to Lost Crates! That means you get monthly gifts until the end of the year. Giveaway details to follow. First let’s talk breakfast dumplings.

To be fair, this giveaway is a bit of a spoiler alert. See… this recipe includes all of September’s Lost Crates gifts. I partnered with Cup4Cup Gluten-Free Flour and Beanilla Trading Company.

Banana seems like a simple and obvious addition to any and all breakfast item (save the infamous Breakfast Nacho). In this dumpling recipe, the bananas add a delicious moisture to our breakfast situation. Cinnamon makes sense in conjunction with the banana. We’re building classic flavors of morning breakfast love.

Should you feel inclined to add a dash of rum or bourbon, I’d totally understand (and high-five you) (and invite myself over for breakfast).

Can we talk about vanilla beans? Ok, seriously… there are about a million places to buy vanilla beans online (Amazon, I’m looking at you…).

I happen to super love Beanilla Trading Company. They offer some seriously high quality vanilla beans. I love that you can buy a few beans at a time, trying out different types from around the world. If you’re a vanilla bean nerd like me, you’re way into this.

With my beans I made a bonkers breakfast sauce. It combines everything breakfast-delicious (excluding bacon). It’s a warm and melty combination of real maple syrup, melted butter, and vanilla beans. The sauce was inspired by Clinton Street Baking Company. Few things are more divine.

Let’s talk giveaway details! I want you all up in this Joy the Baker Lost Crates situation. We really love making packages for you and want to share!

To enter this giveaway simply leave a comment on this post. Sign up for a JtB Lost Crate and you’re entered into the giveaway twice.

Should you enter the giveaway and already be a Lost Crates subscriber, two awesome things happen: you win a bonus prize (a signed Joy the Baker Cookbook), and we’ll transfer your winnings so you receive gifts until December at no charge.

Giveaway is open until Friday, September 7th at midnight PST. This giveaway is open to US residents only. Not to worry… more international giveaway are in our future!

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a large measuring cup, beat together buttermilk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir together until just incorporated and no flour patches remain. Fold in mashed banana. Allow to rest for 5 minutes while the skillet heats up.

Place a nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add a generous teaspoon of oil or butter and allow to heat.

Pour 2 Tablespoons of batter onto the griddle. I used a small cookie scoop. Cook on the first side until the underside is golden brown. Carefully clip dumpling and cook until golden brown and dumpling is mostly cooked through. Try not to flatten the top of the dumpling but leave it tall and doughy. Let cooked dumplings rest on a heat proof plate in a 200 degree F oven until ready to serve. Serve warm with Vanilla Bean Maple Butter.

To make the Vanilla Bean Maple Butter, heat maple syrup in a small sauce pan. In a small bowl, smash together butter and vanilla bean. This will help the butter soften slightly, and help work and stubborn clumps out of the vanilla bean seeds. Slowly whisk bits of vanilla butter into the warm maple syrup. Keep the temperature low; the maple syrup should never boil. Whisk to emulsify then set aside while dumplings fry. Serve warm.

I like the repurposing of these pancakes as dumplings. Mine are usually just called “massively too big and filling pancakes”. I need to make them little. And add banana. Yum!
And I need to go check out Beanilla asap!